Part 35 (1/2)
Distribution - From the Carolinas and Wisconsin far northward.
To name ca.n.a.ls, bridges, city thoroughfares, booming factory towns after DeWitt Clinton seems to many appropriate enough; but why a shy little woodland flower? As fitly might a wee white violet carry down the name of Theodore Roosevelt to posterity!
”Gray should not have named the flower from the Governor of New York,” complains Th.o.r.eau. ”What is he to the lovers of flowers in Ma.s.sachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers.” So completely has Clinton, the practical man of affairs, obliterated Clinton, the naturalist, from the popular mind, that, were it not for this plant keeping his memory green, we should be in danger of forgetting the weary, overworked governor, fleeing from care to the woods and fields; pursuing in the open air the study which above all others delighted and refreshed him; revealing in every leisure moment a too-often forgotten side of his many-sided greatness.
INDIAN CUc.u.mBER-ROOT (Medeola Virginiana) Lily-of-the-valley family
Flowers - Greenish yellow, on fine, curving footstalks, in a loose cl.u.s.ter above a circle of leaves. Perianth of 6 wide-spread divisions about 1/4 in. long; 6 reddish-brown stamens; 3 long reddish-brown styles, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, unbranched, cottony when young. Leaves: Of flowering plants, in 2 whorls; lower whorl of 5 to 9 large, thin, oblong, taper-pointed leaves above the middle of stem; upper whorl of 3 to 5 small, oval, pointed leaves 1 to 2 in. long, immediately under flowers. Flowerless plants with a whorl at summit. Fruit: Round, dark-purple berries.
Preferred Habitat - Moist woods and thickets.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward nearly to the Gulf of Mexico.
Again we see the leaves of a plant coming to the aid of otherwise inconspicuous flowers to render them more attractive. By placing themselves in a circle just below these little spidery blossoms of weak and uncertain coloring, some of the Indian cuc.u.mber's leaves certainly make them at least noticeable, if not showy. It would be short-sighted philanthropy on the leaves' part to help the flowers win insect wooers at the expense of the plant's general health; therefore those in the upper whorl are fewer and much smaller than the leaves in the lower circle, and a sufficient length of stem separates them to allow the sunlight and rain to conjure with the chlorophyll in the group below.
While there is a chance of nectar being pilfered from the flowers by ants, the stem is cottony and ensnares their feet. In September, when small cl.u.s.ters of dark-purple berries replace the flowers, and rich tints dye the leaves, the plant is truly beautiful - of course to invite migrating birds to disperse its seeds. It is said the Indians used to eat the horizontal, white, fleshy rootstock, which has a flavor like a cuc.u.mber's.
CARRION-FLOWER (Smilax herbacea) Smilax family
Flowers - Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small, 6-parted ones cl.u.s.tered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem: Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like appendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves: Egg-shaped, heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved, petioled. Fruit: Bluish-black berries.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Northern Canada to the Gulf States, westward to Nebraska.
”It would be safe to say,” says John Burroughs, ”that there is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not visit, herbacea. The production of this plant is a curious freak of nature.... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel-house.” (Th.o.r.eau compared its odor to that of a dead rat in a wall!) ”It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the prettiest of our native wild flowers,” continues Burroughs, ”and the same bad blood crops out in the purple trillium or birthroot.”
Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Th.o.r.eau should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the purple trillium (q.v.), it has deliberately adapted itself to please its benefactors, the little green flesh flies so commonly seen about untidy butcher shops in summer. These, sharing with many beetles the unthankful task of removing putrid flesh and fowl from the earth, acting the part of scavengers for nature, are naturally attracted to carrion-scented flowers. Of these they have an ungrudged monopoly. But the purple trillium has an additional advantage in both smelling and looking like the same thing - a piece of raw meat past its prime. Bees and b.u.t.terflies, with their highly developed aesthetic sense, ever delighting in beautiful colors, perfume, and nectar, naturally let such flowers as these alone - another object aimed at by them, for then the flies get all the pollen they can eat. Some they transfer, of course, from the larger staminate flowers to the smaller pistillate ones as they crawl over one umbel of the carrion-flower, then alight on another.
Presently fruit begins to set, and we can approach the luxuriant vine without offence to our noses. The beautiful glossy green foliage takes on resplendent tints in early autumn - again with interested motives, for are there not seeds within the little bluish-black berries, waiting for the birds to distribute them during their migration?
The vicious CATBRIER, GREENBRIER, or HORSEBRIER (S.
rotundifolia), similar to the preceding, except that its four-angled stem is well armed with green p.r.i.c.kles, its beautiful glossy, decorative leaves are more rounded, and its greenish flower umbels lack foul odor, scarcely needs description. Who has not encountered it in the roadside and woodland thickets, where it defiantly bars the way?
In the most inaccessible part of such a briery tangle, that rollicking polyglot, the yellow-breasted chat, loves to hide its nest. Indeed, many birds can say with Br'er Rabbit that they were ”bred en bawn in a brier-patch.” Throughout the eastern half of the United $tates and Upper Canada the catbrier displays its insignificant little blossoms from April to June for a miscellaneous lot of flies - insects which are content with the slightest floral attractions offered. The florist's staple vine popularly known as ”SMILAX” (Myrslphyllum asparagoides), a native of the Cape of Good Hope, is not even remotely connected with true Smilaceae.
YELLOW STAR-GRa.s.s (Hypoxis hirsuta; H. erecta of Gray) Amaryllis family
Flowers - Bright yellow within, greenish and hairy outside, about 1/2 in. across, 6-parted; the perianth divisions spreading, narrowly oblong; a few flowers at the summit of a rough, hairy scape 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: All from an egg-shaped corm; mostly longer than scapes, slender, gra.s.s-like, more or less hairy.
Preferred Habitat - Dry, open woods, prairies, gra.s.sy waste places, fields.
Flowering Season - May-October.
Distribution - From Maine far westward, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Usually only one of these little blossoms in a cl.u.s.ter on each plant opens at a time; but that one peers upward so brightly from among the gra.s.s it cannot well be overlooked. Sitting in a meadow sprinkled over with these yellow stars, we see coming to them many small bees - chiefly Halictus - to gather pollen for their unhatched babies' bread. Of course they do not carry all the pollen to their tunneled nurseries; some must often be rubbed off on the sticky pistil tip in the center of other stars. The stamens radiate, that self-fertilization need not take place except as a last extremity. Visitors failing, the little flower closes, bringing its pollen-laden anthers in contact with its own stigma.
BLACKBERRY LILY (Gemmingia Ciminensis; Pardanthus Chinensis of Gray) Iris family
Flowers - Deep orange color, speckled irregularly with crimson and purple within (Pardos = leopard; anthos = flower); borne in terminal, forked cl.u.s.ters. Perianth of 6 oblong, petal-like, spreading divisions; 6 stamens with linear anthers; style thickest above, with 3 branches. Stem: 1 1/2 to 4 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: Like the iris; erect, folded blades, 8 to 10 in.
long. Fruit: Resembling a blackberry; an erect ma.s.s of round, black, fleshy seeds, at first concealed in a fig-shaped capsule, whose 3 valves curve backward, and finally drop off.
Preferred habitat - Roadsides and hills.
Flowering Season - June-July.